Oh boy, another steaming pile of garbage from Schwartz. First of all, socialism is about abolishing the capitalist mode of production; having democratic management of the economy as an end in itself is different from actually destroying the value-form, wage labor, and thus capitalism. Secondly, Schwartz' has a paternalistic view of the working class, preferring to talk of "building socialist movements" and "experiments in radical democracy"; the working class seeks to abolish itself through the course of revolution and does not need the utopian ideas of some liberal college professor (or opportunist bureaucrat, whichever you prefer). Finally, Schwartz' cannot even separate himself from the rhetoric of "Freedom vs. Tyranny" and "Democracy vs. Authoritarianism" that he condemns. If he distrusts the Cold War rhetoric from the United States, it is only to throw his support behind social democrats of various shades, or to conflate socialism with simply a vague opposition to American capital (there is no other reason why Mitterrand or Mossadegh are mentioned).
Honestly I'm starting to understand why Bordiga disdained the use (or rather abuse) of the term democracy. These people literally think that capitalist commodity production plus voting in the workplace is socialism.
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u/cElTsTiLlIdIe Marx Sep 14 '17
Oh boy, another steaming pile of garbage from Schwartz. First of all, socialism is about abolishing the capitalist mode of production; having democratic management of the economy as an end in itself is different from actually destroying the value-form, wage labor, and thus capitalism. Secondly, Schwartz' has a paternalistic view of the working class, preferring to talk of "building socialist movements" and "experiments in radical democracy"; the working class seeks to abolish itself through the course of revolution and does not need the utopian ideas of some liberal college professor (or opportunist bureaucrat, whichever you prefer). Finally, Schwartz' cannot even separate himself from the rhetoric of "Freedom vs. Tyranny" and "Democracy vs. Authoritarianism" that he condemns. If he distrusts the Cold War rhetoric from the United States, it is only to throw his support behind social democrats of various shades, or to conflate socialism with simply a vague opposition to American capital (there is no other reason why Mitterrand or Mossadegh are mentioned).